


Everything I Did

by toyhto



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: "You don't know the man that I've been."





	Everything I Did

**Author's Note:**

> So, I finally watched Black Sails and absolutely loved it and especially, (and because of) the lovely background story of one Captain James Flint. I just had to write something about what happens right after we see him in the last episode.
> 
> If you want to say hi, you can find me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)!

It’s clear that he should tell Thomas nothing.  
  
No, he has to tell something.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
No, it’s okay. There’re things he could say. There’re things Thomas will understand. But he hasn’t seen Thomas in what feels like a fucking lifetime and also like nothing. There’s so much that he can’t recognise in Thomas, which probably means that there’s a lot Thomas can’t recognise in him. He can’t claim to be sure what he can tell Thomas and what is too much. But one thing is certain. He’s not going to lose Thomas, not again. Not because of the things he did.  
  
The weight of the things unsaid is getting heavy, though, and it’s been only, what, an hour? Two? They’re sitting under a tree, close enough to the field that when men talk they hear the sound but not the words. Probably they’re talking about them, him and Thomas, about the two men holding onto each other like lovers, which he can’t let himself think they still are, not yet, not when he hasn’t yet told Thomas anything about what he’s become. But at least something good has come out of it, out of him being James Flint for long enough that he’s begun forgetting who he was before. He doesn’t fucking give a shit about what other people think.  
  
Thomas is watching him now, with quick glances, not like before. He’s not any better. He has to take a deep breath to make himself turn his face to Thomas, to keep his gaze steady.  
  
He has to tell _something._  
  
“Thomas,” he says and then clears his throat, because it tastes odd, the name, it tastes like a memory he’s not supposed to think about. But Thomas’ eyes are gentle. Fuck. _This_ is why he did all those things, _this_ , the sheer pain of having lost the way Thomas’ eyes fell on him, gently, with patience, as if there was nothing to pull Thomas away from him.  
  
His breathing is getting stuck on his throat. He’s probably going to cry. But later. He has to say something first. If only he knew what to say without saying too much.  
  
“You don’t know,” he says slowly, “you don’t know the man that I’ve been. I thought you were dead. And I tried… I thought I tried to finish what you started. With Nassau.”  
  
“I thought you might,” Thomas says, smiling like he used to, only there’s something sad in the corners of his mouth, new lines that don’t quite settle. “But what I wanted for you, for the both of you, was to be happy. As happy as you can. And alive in a place that wouldn’t be as… unforgiving.” And then, there it is, the dark shadow in the way Thomas eyes him. “Is…”  
  
“Miranda is dead.” Surely there’s no gentler way to say it.  
  
Thomas nods.  
  
“I’m sorry. I tried to keep her safe, I _tried_ , but she insisted, and I couldn’t stop –“  
  
“James,” Thomas says in a steady voice, “I know you loved her. I don’t blame you. I suppose if we start blaming ourselves for failing to protect each other, we’re all going to end up blaming ourselves. And nothing goods comes out of that.”  
  
“That’s not all I need to tell you.”  
  
“I thought so,” Thomas says. There’s a soft wind moving on the grass, moving on the back of James’ neck. Not like the wind at the sea.  
  
“I took a new name,” he says, “ _Flint._ Captain Flint. You’d hate him if you knew him.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yeah.” Maybe he should suggest that they forget the years in between them. Maybe he should ask if it’s enough for Thomas that he’s here, now, only it’d never be enough for _him._ “I can’t tell you how many men I’ve killed,” he says, and it sounds simple enough, even easy, and nothing changes in the way Thomas watches him, “or how many friends I’ve crossed, or how many times I’ve thought that whatever terrible thing I did that time was justified because I was trying to do what was right. What you wanted. What _we_ wanted. What I _had_ to do.”  
  
“James –“  
  
“And it’s not that I _won’t_ tell you how many I’ve killed,” he says, “what I’ve destroyed doing it, it’s that I _can’t._ There’re too many to remember. I don’t have a fucking clue. I don’t –“  
  
Thomas reaches onto him, places his hand on James’ arm. For a second, he can’t fucking _breathe._ He stares at Thomas and knows that Thomas knows how he’s struggling to keep his breathing easy. Thomas can still read him like that.  
  
_Fuck_ how much he wants to cry.  
  
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Thomas says in a voice which years ago told James what to do in a different place, in a room with closed doors and a large bed with a mattress that creaked with odd rhythms, in between the things Thomas said, _faster_ , or sometimes, _more gently_ , or _stop_ , or _kiss me_ , or _hold me_ , or _fuck me, come on, come on James,_ and, the sentence that took the longest time to stop echoing in his mind afterwards, _I love you._ “You’re going to tell me everything,” Thomas says now, “because I won’t take it that you try to count what I will forgive and what I won’t. I won’t take it. I want you whole.”  
  
It took some time before he could say it back to Thomas. The words were there, laying heavily on his chest, but every time he tried to push them out he found he couldn’t say it. Not aloud. _I love you._  
  
“I want you as you are now,” Thomas says.  
  
“No, you don’t.”  
  
“You can’t tell me that.”  
  
“Listen,” he says and looks Thomas in the eyes, and _fuck_ this is hard, “I love you. But I’m different. And you can’t possibly… like me, all of me.”  
  
“Tell me everything,” Thomas says, “and see if that makes me stop loving you.”  
  
There’s no way James is going to do that. But Thomas’ hand is still resting on his arm, the fingertips pressing his skin just lightly, then slowly running on his scars and freckles and the sun-burnt skin, and he knows that’s what he’s going to do. Like before, he’s going to do everything Thomas tells him to, eventually. _Kiss me. Hold me. Tell me everything._ And he’s going to be fucking afraid and do it anyway. And in the end of it, Thomas is going to stop loving him.  
  
But at least he has this moment, him and Thomas, sitting under a tree on a sunny day in this place he never knew nothing about. It’s so much more than he thought he’d have ever again.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s difficult, finding the words to tell about those things. He keeps stopping in the middle of sentences, keeps getting lost in the memories he shouldn’t tell anyone, ever, because what kind of a man does things like that? What kind of a monster? He can’t look Thomas in the eyes because he doesn’t want to find out whom Thomas sees right now, _him_ , or the man who did the things he talks about. He doesn’t know which one he is. And the more he talks, the more he can’t figure out how the hell he turned into that man, how it was possible that he did every terrible thing imaginable when he was trying to do right. How is it possible that he did it all for love and still it looks so much like _hate_ , hate for everything and everyone and maybe, in the end, mostly for himself.  
  
_You just want to watch the world burn,_ John Silver said to him.  
  
And God, how much he’s wanted that.  
  
It’s getting late. The light in the tiny hut they’re in has grown dark. There’re shadows covering Thomas’ face and that’s good, that makes it a bit easier. But when James stops talking, Thomas stands up from the bed he’s been sitting on and walks to James, stops in front of him and places his hand on the back of his neck. He lets himself be pulled up, pulled closer, close enough that there’s no shadow that could hide disgust on Thomas’ face from him. But there’s no disgust, either.  
  
Oh, how he’s missed Thomas.  
  
And he had forgotten about what it was like, being so close.  
  
He’s forgotten what the kisses were like, and this one is similar and different at the same time, filled with the ghost of the touches they shared before everything went to hell.  
  
The door is locked. There’re no curtains on the window, but it’s dark and this is the place where they put people like them, so who the fuck cares, if they lie down on the bed and hold onto each other there. He can’t breathe when Thomas’ hands reach under his shirt, when Thomas’ palms cover the map of scars on his skin, the map of years that made him someone else. There’s no way Thomas can love him like this. But the rhythm of his thoughts is interrupted with kisses that taste of haste and, if he can still recognise it, love.  
  
“Hold me,” Thomas says, laying down on the mattress beside him. “Dear God, James, can you hold me close?”  
  
He tries to. He kisses Thomas and keeps telling himself that this will turn sour, it’s just for this one night, tomorrow Thomas will count the things James told him and realise there’s not enough left of James McGraw. But for now, he’s going to be everything Thomas asks of him. It’s not long before they’re naked, and both of their skin has grown older beyond years that have passed, so he gets lost trailing Thomas with kisses that find muscles that weren’t there before, find aches that never existed in the life they shared, find bruises and moles and freckles. He doesn’t remember how this works anymore, he hasn’t fucked a man in a lifetime or so it seems, maybe because he was scared of remembering. But Thomas still likes to tell him what to do and then smiles at him when he comes far too soon like a goddamn beginner, smiles at him, the bastard, and he stays still for a few seconds just to catch his breath and then pulls himself away and kneels down in between Thomas’ knees, kisses the inside of his thigh and then takes his cock in his mouth. The fucking bastard has the nerve to claim that he still loves James, loves James after all those things he hardly found courage to tell Thomas, and how the fuck can that be, what the fuck did he do to earn that, _nothing_ , he did _nothing_ in his life to earn that, but if this is true, if this is real and not a dream that’s about to turn into a nightmare again, then he’s fucking going to hold onto this, hold onto Thomas who comes in his mouth with a quiet moan so familiar it makes everything in him ache. What the fuck did he do to earn this, to get to love this brilliant man, this wonderful, clever, gentle, kind man?  
  
“What’re you thinking about?” Thomas says, his hand resting on the back of James’ neck, fingers drawing slow circles. “Don’t.”  
  
He stares down at Thomas, then lies down on the bed next to him. _God_ , the scent of him, the warmth of his skin. “You. I was thinking about you.”  
  
“You looked worried. I don’t want you worried. Not about me.” Thomas places the tip of his thumb on James’ forehead, on the frown he must have. “Not about my love.”  
  
“I can’t believe you would still…”  
  
“Then don’t. I’ll show you. I’ll make you believe it. Like the last time.” Thomas reaches for James’ hand that’s resting on the mattress in between them, circles his fingers loosely on James’ wrist. “Are you tired?”  
  
He is but there’s no way he’s going to dare to fall asleep now, with Thomas next to him. If he woke up and Thomas was gone… “No.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“How can you tell?”  
  
Thomas smiles at him. “I guessed.”  
  
“Fucker,” he says and holds Thomas’ hand.  
  
“So, you became a pirate.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“A pirate,” Thomas says, touching his face. He wonders what Thomas sees there. “I’d have never guessed that.”  
  
He closes his eyes.  
  
“But, listen,” Thomas says, “this James Flint. You tell me I should hate him, that I can’t possibly love him. And it sounds like he’s done a lot of things that are quite terrible. But in the end, he brought you back to me. From what you told me, it seems he was quite determined to fight that war he had started. But he gave it up because of me.”  
  
“I almost didn’t,” James says, because isn’t it the truth? Wasn’t there a moment when he really wanted just to go on, to keep burning the world down, when John Silver stood in front of him and told him there was a chance to get Thomas back if he walked away from the war?  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” Thomas says. “You came. Let’s go to sleep. We’ll wake up tomorrow, in this bed, together.”  
  
He leans in to kiss Thomas on the mouth.  
  
He doesn’t sleep much. There’s a sound of the soft wind moving on the fields that sometimes grows louder than the steady rhythm of Thomas breathing next to him, so close to him he could touch Thomas anytime, just by reaching his hand, just be leaning closer, and it’s unbelievable, it’s a miracle. Of all the things that have happened to him since he left England, it is the one that’s most difficult to believe.  
  
But it’s real.


End file.
